Kris Connor / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — The Hillary Clinton campaign has hired Zerlina Maxwell, a well-known political analyst and writer, to join its digital outreach team, BuzzFeed News has learned.

Contacted by BuzzFeed News Thursday, a Clinton aide said Maxwell will be focused on a range of policy and cultural issues, including feminism and gender inequality.

Maxwell will also be focused on "coalitions generally, including African American and women," the aide said.

“Zerlina has been profiled in the New York Times as a top political Twitter voice to follow during the 2012 election season, and she was selected by TIME as one of the best Twitter feeds in 2014,” a Clinton aide said in email to BuzzFeed News.

Maxwell, a former writer for Essence Magazine, traveled on Air Force One with President Obama in advance of his 2015 speech on the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama.

Maxwell officially begins Friday — but a cursory glance at her Twitter feed shows she's already begun tweeting about Clinton to her 55,000 followers.

Amy Lindsay has appeared in films such as Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires. “Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad,” a Cruz campaign spokesman told BuzzFeed News.

View Video ›

buzzfeed-video1.s3.amazonaws.com

Ted Cruz's campaign has pulled its most recent ad, "Conservatives Anonymous," after learning one of the actors in the spot is also a softcore porn star.

The ad, which was set at a group therapy session of conservative voters who feel betrayed by Marco Rubio on immigration, featured actor Amy Lindsay, who played a woman telling another group member, "Maybe you should vote for more than just a pretty face next time."

Lindsay has appeared in several softcore porn films, including Erotic Confessions, Carnal Wishes, Secrets of a Chambermaid, and Insatiable Desires.

BuzzFeed News, after learning of Lindsay's prior filmography, requested comment from the Cruz campaign. Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told BuzzFeed News in a statement that the campaign is taking the ad down and replacing it with a different one.

"The actress responded to an open casting call. She passed her audition and got the job. Unfortunately, she was not vetted by the production company. Had the campaign known of her full filmography, we obviously would not have let her appear in the ad," Tyler said.

Prior to the Cruz campaign pulling the ad, Lindsay told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview on Thursday that she's a Christian conservative and a Republican. While she emphasized that she did not do hardcore porn and that she also appeared in non-erotic films, Lindsay said she thinks it is "cool" that an actor who has appeared in softcore porn could also appear in Cruz's ad.

"In a cool way, then hey, then it's not just some old, white Christian bigot that people want to say, 'It could be, maybe, a cool kind of open-minded woman like me,'" she said of people supporting Cruz.

Though Lindsay initially told BuzzFeed News that the person at the campaign who hired her "absolutely knew everything that I had done," she later called back to say that she realized that was not the case.

"I have clearly talked to the filmmakers and stuff and just to be clear, I assumed that they knew, but none of the filmmakers or the casting director knew about my complete filmography in the past that you're talking about, so I was wrong in that statement," Lindsay said, saying that she had assumed that an old friend of hers from an acting class who was present when she was hired was aware of her film history.

Lindsay said she is currently deciding whether to support Cruz or Donald Trump.

Morry Gash / AP

LAS VEGAS — In a testy back and forth at the Democratic debate Thursday night, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders for the first time dove deep into the contentious issue of immigration, just nine days out from the Nevada caucus, where it is a major economic and personal issue.

With each hoping to stand tallest as a champion on immigration, Sanders and Clinton zeroed in on each other's records on the issue Thursday. On the debate stage and in comments by campaign surrogates, each sought to cast the other as someone who has spoken or acted against the best interest of immigrants.

Because the issue has not come up at length in their previous debates, Clinton and Sanders have often found that they don't have much to disagree on — they both often state their support for broad immigration legislation with a path to citizenship, they both want to protect undocumented youth brought to the country as children, and they both say they will go beyond Obama's 2014 executive actions on immigration, currently held up in court.

In a debate where Clinton again continually expressed her support for President Obama, both candidates reiterated one of their rare breaks with him, saying they are opposed to the administration's ramped-up deportation raids since January.

But Clinton took the first shot at Sanders' immigration record when she said she supported Sen. Ted Kennedy's comprehensive legislation in 2007, which Sanders voted against, and said she would expend tremendous energy to get the long-sought law passed.

"Hopefully after the 2016 election, some of the Republicans will come to their senses and realize we are not going to deport 11 or 12 million people in this country," Clinton said, referring to calls by Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. "And they will work with me to get comprehensive immigration reform."

Before Sanders even responded to Clinton on his 2007 vote, he brought up one part of Clinton's record that has haunted her on the left. Sanders referred to the surge of unaccompanied minors from Central America in the summer of 2014, when Clinton said the children should be given as much love as possible, but most should ultimately be sent back.

"I think when we saw children coming from these horrendous, horrendously violent areas of Honduras and neighboring countries, people who are fleeing drug violence and cartel violence, I thought it was a good idea to allow those children to stay in this country," Sanders said. "That was not, as I understand it, the secretary's position."

Sanders, as he has before, said he voted against the bill because of its guest worker provisions. The Southern Poverty Law Center called its guest worker provisions akin to "slavery," and that both the AFL-CIO labor union and Latino organization LULAC were against it, he said.

Clinton invoked Kennedy to make the case that it was a progressive piece of legislation Sanders should have supported.

"I think Ted Kennedy had a very clear idea about what needed to be done," she said. "And I was proud to stand with him and support it."

The issue of the thousands of children who came to the country was a thornier one for Clinton. She again said the children deserved due process.

"But we also had to send a message to families and communities in Central America not to send their children on this dangerous journey in the hands of smugglers," she said.

Sanders questioned the wisdom of trying to send a message in such a dire situation.

"These are children who are leaving countries and neighborhoods where their lives are at stake," he said. "That was the fact. I don't think we use them to send a message."

The high-stakes battle to embrace not just stances friendly to undocumented immigrants but to also be seen as trustworthy on the issue didn't just take place on the debate stage Thursday, but also broke out into the open between surrogates and staff of both campaigns.

The day began with Sanders releasing a letter, along with a surrogate for his campaign — progressive Rep. Raul Grijalva — admonishing the Obama administration for its Priority Enforcement Program (PEP).

PEP, a much-less talked about change in Obama's most recent executive orders on immigration, replaced the controversial Secure Communities program, which allowed local law enforcement to hold people with immigration detainers until immigration officials showed up to take them away.

"There is little evidence that ICE is following the directives and priorities laid out in your memoranda, or that there is any oversight or accountability within the agency to follow the policies you established," Sanders and Grijalva wrote, criticizing the new program PEP.

in an interview with BuzzFeed News, Clinton surrogate and longtime immigration advocate Rep. Luis Gutierrez ripped into Sanders record, saying that just standing with Grijalva or strong immigration activists he hired does not paper over his immigration record.

"I understand Raul Grijalva wants his candidate to win and will do anything he can to rehabilitate Sanders sad record on immigrants," Gutierrez said, like Clinton, also pointing to Sanders 2007 vote.

But Gutierrez went further, accusing Sanders of politically expedient election year votes before heading to the Senate in 2006, when Sanders voted for border security bills, along with Republicans in the House.

Gutierrez said that at the time NCLR and ACLU were strongly against those votes.

"He wanted to get elected, and now wants to rehabilitlate, but I will always stand with the progressive caucus and NCLR, as Grijalva did, and stand with the ACLU," Gutierrez said.

Sanders' Latino outreach director Arturo Carmona dismissed Gutierrez's comments as "kicking and screaming" and said Sanders campaign wants to have a discussion of the issues and whose plan best gives dignity to immigrants in the country.

"It's unfortunate to see this from someone I respect in Luis Gutierrez," he said.

On a day when civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis questioned Sanders commitment to the civil rights movement, it became clear that Clinton supporters are done with ceding ground to him as the ultimate progressive, especially on issues related to minorities, who will play pivotal roles in the next states on the nominating calendar, Nevada and South Carolina.

Carmona said the Clinton campaign took shots at their letter today because they can't have a debate on who is strongest on immigration, and while he said the discussion shouldn't be about petty insults, he called Clinton's plan "shameful."

While Sanders has the strongest plan to protect workers and immigrants, Carmona argued, Clinton has "wobbled" on the deportation of unaccompanied minors and driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

But Gutierrez noted that it was Sanders who infamously went on Lou Dobbs show in 2007 to rail against the effect immigrants have on American workers, driving "wages down lower than they are right now."

Of Carmona and well-known activists like Erika Andiola who joined Sanders campaign, Gutierrez said they, like Grijalva, have been in the trenches, but Sanders has traditionally been absent — until now as a presidential candidate.

"In the end, wonderful people work on Sanders campaign," he said. "DREAMers and others that have great records of tenacity and commitment to Latinos, but you can’t take your commitment and record and give it to your candidate."

Scott Olson / Getty Images

MILWAUKEE — Bernie Sanders offered something new on Thursday night: He embraced his past critiques of President Obama, and challenged Hillary Clinton to prove they’re a liability.

On Thursday, Clinton and Sanders met for the second time on stage as a pair, for a Democratic debate hosted by PBS on the campus of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. For the most part, Sanders and Clinton stayed mired in the idealism-vs.-pragmatism trench warfare that’s so far made it hard for either candidate to advance significantly or lose much ground on the debate stage.

But near the end of the 90-minute forum, Clinton turned a question about leaders she admired into calling Sanders out for his past criticism of Obama.

“The kind of criticism that we've heard from Sen. Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans,” Clinton said. “I do not expect from someone running for the Democratic nomination to succeed President Obama.”

Sanders’s rejoinder: “Madam Secretary, that is a low blow.”

It’s true that Sanders criticizes Obama regularly on the campaign trail and has had a harsher take on him in the past — even calling for a primary opponent to face him from the left for a time in 2011. He eventually endorsed the president for re-election in 2012, but not before some tough words for him. On the presidential campaign trail himself last year, Sanders sought to minimize the past critiques.

But it’s also true that the Sanders critique of the president channels the activist left his campaign relies on to fuel its improbable and sustained rise. On the debate stage, he leaned in.

“You know what? Last I heard we lived in a democratic society,” he said. “Last I heard, a United States senator had the right to disagree with the president, including a president who has done such an extraordinary job.”

“So I have voiced criticisms. You're right. Maybe you haven't. I have,” Sanders went on.

“I think it is really unfair to suggest that I have not been supportive of the president. I have been a strong ally with him on virtually every issue,” he added. “Do senators have the right to disagree with the president? Have you ever disagreed with a president? I suspect you may have.”

“One of us ran against Barack Obama,” Sanders said. “I was not that candidate.”

Sanders ongoing criticism of Obama is for failing, as Sanders sees it, to put his grassroots support to work after the election was over in 2008. Obama told his base, Sanders often says, thanks for the vote but “I will take it from here.”

This disagreement is, essentially, Sanders’s entire pitch for his presidency. Sanders says he’ll be able to hold progressives together and turn them into an ongoing grassroots “political revolution” that pushes politics left through sheer force of will. He repeated that take to MSNBC this week, the interview that Clinton referred to when she said he sounded like a Republican.

Sanders supporters say Sanders’s plan to lean into his disagreements with Obama — to cast himself as loyal opposition, a representative of a left wing frustrated under Obama — will actually pay off in the end, even if Obama remains very popular with Democrats, and especially with the black voters who make up a significantly larger share of the electorate in Nevada and South Carolina.

“At the end of the day, this is where we get into the difference between established politics and the status quo — i.e., I will go along to get along — versus the ‘I fight for the people.’ It is ok to disagree, we do it all the time,” said Justin Bamberg, the high-profile South Carolina lawmaker and attorney. He was on hand in Milwaukee as a Sanders surrogate.

“I do not think that is going to affect the African-American vote in the state,” Bamberg said. “You show me somebody that everybody agrees with and you’re probably looking at Jesus.”

America Rising feels the Bern.

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

A Republican opposition research firm is increasing its efforts to dig up dirt on Bernie Sanders after his victory over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire.

America Rising sent a batch of routine Freedom of Information Act requests this week asking for correspondence between Sanders' Senate office and federal government departments. The group had also submitted some requests for Sanders last month.

Typically, such requests are sent years before the presidential race due to the lengthy FOIA process. A review of FOIA logs with federal agencies shows America Rising looking into Clinton years before the election due to her status as the presumptive nominee.

The FOIAs, obtained by BuzzFeed News are a sign the group isn't discounting a chance of a Sanders nomination. Earlier this week, Rising released a video going after the candidate's positions.

America Rising's executive director, Colin Reed, told BuzzFeed News, "After Secretary Clinton's embarrassing loss in New Hampshire, self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders is now in a dead heat for the Democratic nomination. America Rising is acting accordingly, and expanding our already-existing research efforts into Senator Sanders. We'll continue holding Secretary Clinton accountable, and with three ongoing federal investigations and her trustworthy numbers at astonishing lows, she's given us plenty of material."

Here's are the group's requests:

View Entire List ›

“I was commander-in-chief of the National Guard. I visited Iraq and Afghanistan. The National Guard in Florida took the responsibility of running Abu Ghraib prison. I walked that prison. I saw the heroic effort of the citizen soldiers taking care of their job with great distinction. I supported our Guard in every possible way.”

Alex Wong / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush cited his experience as head of the Florida National Guard in a radio interview Friday to counter claims from Marco Rubio that he lacked foreign policy credentials. The former Florida governor singled out the Florida Guard that ran the scandal-plagued Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as proof of his foreign policy chops.

A Bush spokesman said the governor was referring to the prison post-scandal.

"Jeb visited Florida Guard troops in Iraq in 2006 who were serving their country admirably and helping turn that prison back over to the Iraqis following scandal," said Tim Miller. "Those troops should be commended for their service and their sacrifice. Jeb's experience is validated by over 40 admirals and generals who have endorsed his campaign because he is best prepared to be Commander-in-Chief on day one."

In recent days Rubio has attacked Bush for having "no foreign policy experience." Speaking on Kilmeade and Friends Friday, Bush noted his plethora of knowledge in world affairs.

"The commander-in-chief has had to have some leadership experience beforehand," Bush said. "Attending a committee occasionally and learning from sophisticated people about the threats on the world... you know, I can get briefed, as I have about that. The question is who has the steady hand, who won't cut and run. Who has the leadership to make tough decisions? And that's what I bring."

Bush cited his private sector experience abroad, his trade missions overseas, and his record commanding the Florida National Guard. In particular, Bush noted the Florida National Guard work at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

"I was commander-in-chief of the National Guard. I visited Iraq and Afghanistan. The National Guard in Florida took the responsibility of running Abu Ghraib prison. I walked that prison. I saw the heroic effort of the citizen soldiers taking care of their job with great distinction. I supported our Guard in every possible way."

"I know a little bit about this because I was governor the state of Florida and frankly Brian, I've also had a front seat," continued Bush. "I've had a brother who was president. I've had father who was president and I've learned from them a lot as well."

He’s not a fan.

Gabriella Demczuk / Getty Images

w.soundcloud.com

In a radio interview Friday, Republican Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, his presumptive Democratic opponent in the 2016 Senate race, is "a naive fool not fit for office" for her comment that those using harsh rhetoric about Muslims deserve some blame for the radicalization of American Muslims.

Duckworth had singled out Kirk and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump as two people who used such rhetoric in an editorial board meeting flagged by the Washington Free Beacon

Kirk, speaking on the John Howell Show on Friday said Duckworth's comments were "blindly idiotic" and "dumb."

"For Tammy Duckworth to blame the junior senator from Illinois for Islamic terror shows that she is a naive fool not fit for office in the Senate," said Kirk in comments first uploaded to YouTube by the Democratic firm American Bridge. "Not that the Democrats have not done well in the War on Terror. The attempt to blame Republicans for radical Islamic terror is the last refuge of — totally false, and not effective, and showing just how far they will go to try to hold on to office."

Late last year, following the terrorist attacks in Paris, Duckworth argued not taking into refugees played into ISIS' hands, while Kirk said a pause in accepting refugees was warranted.

"It was just so dumb, you just lay it out there, so blindly idiotic that people of Illinois would think that," he continued. "You just let her build a fire and burn herself down."

"She's a very partisan person. I don't think she's capable of doing that," Kirk added, when asked if Duckworth had apologized to him.

A Duckworth spokesman fired back at Kirk saying the senator has been repeatedly wrong on nationals security.

"The truth hurts: Mark Kirk helped lead the charge into the Iraq War, and that disastrous decision created the conditions which gave rise to ISIS. He was wrong then, he's wrong now, and his bizarre Twitter tantrum and subsequent statements reveal that he doesn't appreciate being challenged or held to account for how he's been wrong on just about every critical national security issue of the past 15 years, or for his irresponsible rhetoric."

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Sen. Kelly Ayotte is pushing her Democratic opponent to sign a pledge against outside money in her tough re-election race, but one of the biggest spenders on the right — Koch-backed Americans For Prosperity — is sitting out of the race regardless.

AFP, which has shelled out millions on issue ads related to Senate races in recent election cycles, spent some money last year against Gov. Maggie Hassan, the Democrat taking on Ayotte. But it has been disappointed with the senator's recent votes and has no plans to provide air cover for the Republican, even if the GOP majority in the Senate hinges on her re-election, Teresa Oelke, the group’s vice president of state operations, told BuzzFeed News in a recent interview.

"We’re not an advertising arm for the Republican Party,” Oelke said.

AFP became critical of Ayotte because of her position on the Export-Import Bank and clean power regulations. Oekle singled out Ayotte as the one Republican in a toss-up race the group could not support.

“Sen. Ayotte’s position has diverged sharply away from free-market issues, and we’ve seen her embrace Obama’s far-left environmental agenda," Oekle said. "Playing that kind of politics is not in the best interest of the American people."

Ayotte and Hassan have been going back-and-forth this week over signing a “People’s Pledge,” barring outside spending in the race. Although conservative groups — other than AFP — have already spent money on behalf of Ayotte, the senator has proposed a pledge in line with one now-Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown signed in the 2012 election.

Hassan’s campaign has countered Ayotte’s pledge offer by proposing a $15 million-cap on campaign spending.

Stephen Maturen / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — "Say 'black!'" a member of the audience shouted at Bernie Sanders at a forum Friday as he tried to answer a question about reparations for slavery.

Sanders, who had just uttered the phrase "African American," looked frustrated.

"I said 'black' 50 times!" Sanders shouted into his microphone. "That's the 51st time."

The Black America Forum, hosted by Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, was billed by organizers as "a historic opportunity for communities that are usually overlooked on the campaign trail to have a conversation with a presidential candidate." The venue was not the Bern-feeling rally common to the Sanders campaign

Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison introduced Sanders, who gave a shortened version of his stump speech and then sat at a table with six local black activists and residents of the North Minneapolis neighborhood.

Native Americans in the audience, including famed American Indian Movement co-founder Clyde Bellecourt, took the floor to talk about native issues and economic problems.

Sanders was then pressed several times on the issue of reparations, specifically for black Americans and for slavery. Sanders' opposition to reparations raised a furor after Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates slammed him for it in print earlier this year. (Coates said he'll vote for Sanders earlier this week.)

Sanders addressed the issue directly after a woman rose and accused him of being "afraid to say the word 'black.'" The topic was Flint, Michigan, both Sanders and the questioner shared the view that poorer communities across the country face higher pollution rates.

"Every time we talk about black people, and us getting something for the systematic oppression and exploitation of our people we have to include every other person of color," she said. "Can you please talk about specifically black people and reparations?"

The woman said her son suffers from asthma and other illnesses because her home is near a location where garbage is regularly burned. She said black Americans deserve a special restitution for slavery and its after effects.

Sanders fell back to his general take that economic inequality unites lower-income people.

"You and I may disagree about this. This is not just black, it is Latino and there are areas in America, more rural areas where it's white," he said. "I believe that in a country which has more income and wealth inequality than any other country, the time is long overdue to start investing in poor [communities.]"

"What I believe we should do is invest most heavily in those communities most in need," Sanders continued. "And when you have 35% of black children living in poverty, when you have half of the kids in this country in public schools on free and reduced lunches, when youth unemployment in the African American community is 51%, those are exactly the kinds of communities that you invest in."

The line got sustained applause from the audience.

Anthony Newby, executive director of Neighborhoods Organizing for Change — which sponsored the event — told BuzzFeed News afterward that the tone of the forum reflected a fear in the black community that government largess promised by candidates like Sanders will never make it to the black community.

If Sanders wants to convince black people he understands their frustrations, Newby said, he has to talk about how his plans will specifically put money into black communities — not reparations per se, but something close.

"He has not shied away from talking about race generally," Newby said. "But unless there's a deliberate strategy [to invest in black communities,] it simply won't happen."

"We didn't get to that tonight," Newby said. "But the campaign trail is long."

Win Mcnamee / Getty Images

MINNEAPOLIS — It’s not over.

The weekend before the New Hampshire primary, when comments made by Clinton supporters Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright about young women voters offended Bernie supporters and put the Clinton campaign on the defensive, is still reverberating.

On Friday, hours before Hillary Clinton and Sanders both addressed the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor stage here, Albright penned a New York Times op-ed saying she was wrong to repeat on the campaign trail her line about the special place in hell for women who don’t support other women. Clinton, at this juncture, is the candidate struggling so far to connect with young voters, including women — and has recently faced the prospect of a backlash.

This circumstance is deeply frustrating to a specific group of young women: Democratic operatives 45 and under who have spent much of their careers trying to drive their party toward a greater focus on women’s issues and women voters. Many are a decade or more into political careers and have achieved a lot in Washington despite a sexism they argue is pervasive in politics. Like most in the Democratic establishment, most of them think Clinton is their party’s best choice for president, and like a lot of women, they think Clinton’s historic candidacy will help change the culture for American women.

They’re not happy with the Clinton campaign’s apparent failure to split young women off from the larger group of younger progressive voters rallying to Sanders in huge numbers. They’re also not happy with the young women, who they say are foolishly taking a stand that voting for a woman isn’t a big deal in and of itself — they say they know from experience that isn’t the case.

BuzzFeed News reached out to a dozen high-power women Democratic operatives in their mid-40s and under for their take on what’s happening in the Democratic primary with young women in the week following Albright and Steinem’s comments. All but one — the one defending the Clinton campaign — spoke anonymously so they could be honest without diverting attention from their real jobs and bosses.

These are women who work at the senior level in cabinet departments, in top positions on the Hill, at well-known Democratic strategy firms, as department leaders at progressive think tanks, in the highest echelons of presidential campaigns, at women’s groups. They’ve all had campaign experience, and they’re all invested in the idea of activating young women as the next generation of political leaders.

None work for the Clinton campaign. All saw a campaign that’s failing when it comes to young women.

There are two main problems with young women and the primary, the women said.

Problem 1: The Clinton campaign doesn’t get it.

Jim Watson / AFP / Getty Images

“They should drop the patronizing #ImWithHer hashtag and tell their surrogates — whether it's Lena Dunham, Madeleine Albright, or Gloria Steinem — to lay off the women scolding,” said one strategist in her early 30s experienced in presidential politics. “There are plenty of reasons why young women should consider Clinton's candidacy — her gender just isn't chief among them.”

Clinton needs to do better, said one 40 year-old strategist who works with younger voters. New outreach through new channels like fashion magazines, digital platforms like Dunham’s newsletter, Lenny, Clinton appearing in an episode of Broad City all make good sense, the strategist told BuzzFeed News in an email. But they’re not enough to fix Clinton’s problems when it comes to younger voters period, and especially younger women, she added. Voters born during the 1990s have very little memory of them. The Clinton they know is the Clinton of 2008, the public face of a pitched fight against President Obama, whom many younger Americans loved.

There needs to be a Clinton reintroduction to women voting either their first or just their second contested Democratic primary, several of the women said.

“Hillary has blown recent debate and media questions about her youth support (aside from the excellent line that she wants to earn their vote),” the 40-year-old strategist wrote. “Those questions are an opportunity to talk about getting things done and her experience in doing so; she doesn't need to pander on college affordability.”

Find the young women voters where they are, the strategist told BuzzFeed News in comments that echoed several takes.

“To overcome the perception problem, Hillary needs more unscripted, authentic interactions with real young people,” the strategist said. “They also need to step up outreach to young Latino, African-American, and Asian women; a lot of the platforms they've utilized thus far skew white, educated, and middle-to-upper class.”

Young women voters, of course, share the same desire for idealism and ideological purity all younger progressive voters seek, several of the strategists said. They’re also relatively sophisticated in terms of their relationship with marketing and with political spin.

“She's not cool. But so what?” said one 30-year-old strategist, a veteran of campaigns from the House level to a run for the White House. “Owning the story of who she is and how she's made the decisions she's made would go a lot further than pretending she never held different positions in the past. The result has been a disingenuousness that's hard to overcome.”

Some operatives said Millennial women are starting to solve this problem themselves, pointing to viral posts like a January Bottle article by Jacqui Oesterblad and the recent “all-caps rant” by Courtney Enlow of Pajiba have achieved huge viral followings of young women drawn to their unabashed backing of Clinton because she’s a woman. That’s a model the Clinton campaign could replicate.

Other women said the Clinton-vs.-young women storyline is, at best, overblown.

“This narrative seems to be based off of cherry-picked crosstabs and anecdotes collected from supporters at Sanders rallies,” Marcy Stetch, communications director at EMILY’s List, told BuzzFeed News. “Hillary is best-positioned to win women of all ages beyond the confines of Iowa and New Hampshire — and she is strongest to take on whichever Republican extremist emerges as the nominee.”

Problem #2: Young women who back Bernie don’t get it.

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Clinton the candidate (vs. Clinton the campaign), has already been an unabashed success for the goals of Democratic women in politics, several of the operatives said. She’s helped move the party conversation on abortion rights in a direction progressive women have sought for years in their view, for instance.

There were tough words for the women feeling the Bern from many of the Democratic operatives. Pointing to polling that shows Clinton’s support among women rises as their age goes up, several operatives said young women offended by the suggestion supporting a woman is the right thing for women to do don’t really understand what it means to be a professional woman in modern society — and what a woman president would mean for those women.

“I also thought it was dumb to support a woman because she's a woman. So I made the brilliant decision to support John Edwards instead,” one strategist in her early 30s recalled of her experience in the 2008 election. “It wasn't until I started working for women that I fully understood how having women in leadership positions is fundamentally different than working for men — or perhaps more importantly, I didn’t understand how we cannot fully address the issues facing women until we put a woman in the world’s most famous office. Simply put, it's a feature, not a bug.”

Young voters are notoriously “naive,” operatives said, and notoriously difficult to woo with promises of stubborn practicality and slow progress like Clinton has offered.

The young women who refuse to break with that tradition in 2016 could regret it later, the Democratic operatives said.

There’s a reason for that, the 30-somethings said — the real world is not a great place for women often.

“The 22 year-old me very well could have been feeling the Bern (current me cringes at this thought). I think there's a lot of truth to young women being more idealistic and big picture, you want to save the world,” one strategist now a senior member of the executive branch supporting Clinton, wrote in an email. “Once you are in the real world, the rubber meets the road. If you are a successful woman, you likely face a host of different issues your male counterparts do not. It's not that Bernie isn't good on women's issues, they aren't a priority and it's not like he understands the plight of a working mom or constantly being the only woman in the room and being dismissed.”

Charles Rex Arbogast / AP

WASHINGTON — Justice Antonin Scalia, who served almost 30 years on the Supreme Court as one of its most prominent and influential conservative voices, died Saturday. He was 79.

"On behalf of the Court and retired Justices, I am deeply saddened to report that our colleague Justice Antonin Scalia has passed away," Chief Justice John Roberts said.

"He was an extraordinary individual and jurist, admired and treasured by his colleagues. His passing is a great loss to the Court and the country he so loyally served. We extend our deepest condolences to his wife Maureen and his family," Roberts said.

President Obama praised the justice in a statement from Rancho Mirage, California.

"He will no doubt be remembered as one of the most consequential judges and thinkers on the Supreme Court," Obama said.

Scalia's unexpected death creates a complicated political situation concerning his replacement.

Obama said Saturday night that he will nominate a replacement. "I plan to fulfill my constitutional responsibility to nominate a successor in due time," Obama said. "There will be plenty of time for me to do so and for the Senate to fulfill its responsibility to give that person a full hearing and timely vote."

But the Senate is very unlikely to confirm anyone that Obama nominates before he leaves office this year, especially to replace a justice considered a major pillar of modern conservatism. Top Republicans, GOP operatives, and presidential candidates also made that clear on Saturday evening.

"This vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, called for Obama to nominate a replacement "right away."

Obama remembered Scalia as "a larger than life presence on the bench...a brilliant legal mind..with colorful opinions."

Obama said Scalia "influenced a generation" of legal thinkers and is “one of the towering legal figures of our time.”

Scalia was an "avid hunter," Obama said, and mentioned Scalia's odd couple friendship with his intellectual counterpart on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, saying they enjoyed opera together.

"Justice Scalia and I had fundamental disagreements about how the Supreme Court interprets the Constitution," Vice President Joe Biden said, "but we shared a belief that sharp debates, tough questions, and deep respect for the adversarial process was an essential part of our judicial system and our democracy."

Presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle expressed their condolences regardless of political ideology. Saturday night's GOP debate began with a moment of silence.

Scalia’s death could impact the remaining cases before the court in this term, generally expected to end at the end of June. The death such a reliable conservative could swing some contentious decisions from 5-4 to 4-4. Here’s what happens if that’s the case:

Among the Supreme Court cases already argued but still haven’t been decided involve issues of “one person, one vote,” affirmative action, and public unions.

Rep. Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, summed up Scalia's tenure this way: "Scalia did more to advance originalism and judicial restraint than anyone in our time, and it all started with just two words: 'I dissent.'"

The San Antonio Express-News reported that the justice was found dead of apparent natural causes in a West Texas resort while on a hunting trip. The New York Times reported that he received the Catholic sacrament of last rites.

A source told CNN Scalia had gone to bed on Friday night complaining that he felt unwell. He was reportedly found unresponsive on Saturday.

A representative of the Cibolo Creek Ranch, where Scalia was reported to have died, told BuzzFeed News she was unable to comment, citing guest confidentiality.

In a statement, Texas governor Gov. Greg Abbott remembered the Supreme Court justice as a "man of God, a patriot, and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the Rule of Law."

"He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution," Abbott said.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered all flags in the city to half mast until Feb. 22 in honor of Scalia.

Scalia, who had nine children and many grandchildren, was the current court's longest-serving justice, having been nominated in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan.

Long-embraced by conservatives and denounced by liberals, Scalia was the Supreme Court's most prominent originalist, subscribing to an interpretation of the Constitution that frames it through the views of the Founding Fathers.

Retiring Chief Justice Warren Burger, right, administers an oath to Associate Justice Antonin Scalia in 1986.

Charles Tasnadi / AP

“Although I often did not agree with his legal opinions, no one doubted his commitment or his brilliance," said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.

Scalia was the first Italian-American to serve on the Supreme Court. His father, Salvatore Eugene Scalia, had immigrated to the U.S. from Sicily as a teenager. Salvatore later earned a doctorate from Columbia and taught at Brooklyn College. His mother, Catherine Panaro Scalia, was the daughter of Italian immigrants.

Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 11, 1936, and was the couple's only child. He graduated first in his class from Xavier High School in Manhattan. By his own account, Scalia was a studious teen and "worked really hard."

"I was never cool," he told CBS in 2008.

Scalia's Catholic faith — which would eventually become one of his defining characteristics — deepened while he was in high school, and he later said he considered joining the priesthood.

President Ronald Reagan, center, announcing the nomination of Antonin Scalia, left, to the Supreme Court on June 17, 1986.

Ron Edmonds / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Scalia earned a bachelor's degree in history from Georgetown University in 1957, then graduated from Harvard Law School in 1960. While at Harvard he met Maureen McCarthy on a blind date and the two eventually married.

In the 1960s, Scalia worked as a private lawyer in Ohio. He left Ohio in 1967 to teach at the University of Virginia. He later served in several public agencies under presidents Nixon and Ford, before being nominated for the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan in 1986.

The Senate unanimously confirmed Scalia's nomination, and he took his seat in September 1986.

Last year, Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion in the landmark case Obergefell vs. Hodges, which determined that same-sex couples had the right to marry. In his dissent, Scalia argued among other things that there was a robust debate over same-sex marriage, and that the court should not end that debate. He also characterized the majority opinion as "lacking even a thin veneer of law."

Despite Scalia's opinion in the case, plaintiff Jim Obergefell tweeted his condolences Saturday, saying "thank you for your service to our country, Justice Scalia."

One of Scalia's former law clerks called him "the real deal."

"After oral argument, my co-clerks and I would meet with the Justice to discuss the cases and prepare him for conference. Those meetings revealed the man. Like all of us, the Justice had biases. Yet, unlike most of us, the Justice was often transparent about those biases, and those biases could always be overcome by reason," Ryan Walsh wrote on Facebook. "If the Justice were inclined to disagree with us about a case, he not only would welcome a fight—he would expect it."

"Law was not politics to Justice Scalia," Walsh wrote. "Nor was it mere will. Law, to Justice Scalia, was law."

LINK: Here's C-SPAN's Archive Of Scalia Videos

LINK: The Senate Is Very Unlikely To Confirm A Scalia Replacement This Year

LINK: Presidential Candidates React To Death Of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

LINK: The Unlikely Friendship Antonin Scalia Struck On The Supreme Court

Carlos Barria / Reuters

WASHINGTON — The unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia creates a complicated situation in Washington to determine his replacement on the high court.

Republicans are extremely unlikely to confirm anyone that President Barack Obama nominates in the final months of his second term to replace a justice considered a major pillar of modern conservatism — a position that top Republicans, Republican operatives, and presidential candidates already have made clear on Saturday evening.

“The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new President," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in a statement.

"Justice Scalia was an American hero. We owe it to him, & the Nation, for the Senate to ensure that the next President names his replacement,” Ted Cruz tweeted from his Senate account Saturday afternoon. Marco Rubio likewise said in a statement that the "next president must nominate a justice who will continue Justice Scalia's unwavering belief in the founding principles that we hold dear."

The spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee, who serves on the Judiciary Committee, tweeted, “What is less than zero? The chances of Obama successfully appointing a Supreme Court Justice to replace Scalia? If anything this will put a full stop to all Obama judicial nominees going forward.”

There was never any real chance Republicans would confirm an Obama nominee at this point, especially with control of both the Senate and the White House in play in this year's election. Of course, this will not prevent Obama from making that as painful a process as possible for vulnerable Senate Republican up for re-election — and as big an issue for Republican contenders.

“I don’t think anyone Obama would be thinking about nominating can get through this Senate. No one,” said Josh Holmes, a former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Holmes argued even if Obama moved towards the middle — something “he hasn’t shown any proclivity to do” — it would be unlikely, given how conservative Scalia was.

It’s not entirely uncommon for the Senate to block the nominee for a vacancy. But the loss of Scalia is unique: He is, as one Republican put it, “a rock solid conservative seat,” and given the divisions on the court conservatives will be adamant that one of their own replace him.

If Republicans reject Obama’s second nominee, there will be significant pressure on them to at least be open to a compromise candidate, and Democrats — who are holding out hope they can retake the Senate in November — could use a total blockade to accuse Republicans of gridlock.

Already on Saturday evening, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, put out a statement expressing sadness at Scalia's death, and extolling the virtues of a quick confirmation. "I hope that no one will use this sad news to suggest that the president or the Senate should not perform its constitutional duty," he said. "The American people deserve to have a fully functioning Supreme Court. The Supreme Court of the United States is too important to our democracy for it to be understaffed for partisan reasons. It is only February. The president and the Senate should get to work without delay to nominate, consider and confirm the next justice to serve on the Supreme Court.”

What effect that would have is unclear. Given the stark divisions between the parties, both sides have increasingly become comfortable with standing pat on their demands, regardless of political pressure. And the sheer gravity of replacing Scalia could rise above any political considerations. “Supreme Court nominations are one of the very few things where political risk is outweighed by the fundamental change to the legal system of this country,” the Republican said.

And the fallout from political fight over Scalia’s replacement won’t be contained to the confirmation itself. Routine legislation could fall victim to protracted floor fights, and the use of punitive procedural measures by Democrats to protest GOP opposition could bring Congress to a standstill.

“Welcome to the summer of filibusters,” a former Senate Republican leadership aide said Saturday.

Clinton: “The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia’s seat to remain vacant dishonor our Constitution. The Senate has a constitutional responsibility here that it cannot abdicate for partisan political reasons.”

Evan Vucci / AP

Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns alike mourned death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Saturday.

Scalia, 79, reportedly died in his sleep in Texas. Appointed by Ronald Reagan, Scalia was one of the most conservative members of the Court.

"As liberals and conservatives alike would agree, through his powerful and persuasive opinions, Justice Scalia fundamentally changed how courts interpret the Constitution and statutes, returning the focus to the original meaning of the text after decades of judicial activism," Cruz said in statement. "And he authored some of the most important decisions ever, including District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized our fundamental right under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms. He was an unrelenting defender of religious liberty, free speech, federalism, the constitutional separation of powers, and private property rights. All liberty-loving Americans should be in mourning."

View Entire List ›

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Donald Trump went after a Bush on Saturday night in South Carolina: George W. Bush.

Trump repeatedly attacked Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, said the Bush administration of lied about weapons of mass destruction, said that the line that Bush “kept us safe” doesn’t hold true because of 9/11 (an attack he’s made before), and obliquely defended comments he made years ago that impeaching Bush for Iraq would be a good thing.

The exchange began when CBS News moderator John Dickerson repeated comments that Trump made to Wolf Blitzer in 2008 that he was surprised Nancy Pelosi had not moved to impeach Bush and that it would have been a “wonderful thing.” Did he still think Bush should be impeached, Dickerson asked, as the crowd booed.

“I get along with everybody, which is my obligation to my company, to myself, et cetera,” he said. “Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right. Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took — it took Jeb Bush — if you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced for president, it took him five days. He went back, it was a mistake, it wasn't a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said, ‘It was a mistake.’ The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don't even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously, it was a mistake.”

“George Bush made a mistake,” he went on. “We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.”

Then Dickerson asked again — did he still he should be impeached?

“You do whatever you want,” Trump said, sharply, as the crowd booed. “You call it whatever you want. I will tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”

Trump has repeatedly attacked the Iraq War over the past year, using it as a sign of his own good judgment that he opposed it and a sign of the way U.S. foreign policy has been mismanaged. (One problem: There is no record of Trump opposing the Iraq War before it started.) The politics of that in the Republican Party have changed over the last decade: Many of the candidates have been to varying degrees critical of the Iraq War, though Republican candidates are less often critical of George W. Bush himself, who is more popular with Republicans than he was when he left office.

Jeb Bush, playing to a friendly audience, responded to Trump, saying “I’m sick and tired of Barack Obama blaming my brother for all of the problems that he's had. And, frankly, I could care less about the insults that Donald Trump gives to me,” going on an extended riff about his family.

“The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign. Remember that,” Trump interjected. “That's not keeping us safe.”

Jeb Bush ignored the line, and continued on, ultimately finishing, “This is not about my family or his family. This is about the South Carolina families that need someone to be the commander in chief that can lead. I’m that person.”

John Kasich, then observed that the whole thing was crazy — to laughs from the audience — before saying, essentially, that we shouldn't have gone to Iraq.

John Locher / AP

DENVER — For one evening, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders took a break from each other and ganged up on the Senate Republicans.

Speaking before a record crowd at the Colorado Democratic Party's 83rd Annual Dinner Saturday, Clinton and Sanders both attacked Senate Republican promises to block any nominee President Obama selects to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died Saturday morning.

In back-to-back speeches at a downtown Sheraton ballroom, Clinton and Sanders both called on Obama to nominate a replacement for Scalia and scolded Senate Republicans.

"Let me just make one point. Barack Obama is president of the United States until January 20, 2017," Clinton said. "That is a fact, whether Republicans like it or not. Elections have consequences."

Sanders, who currently serves in the Senate and presumably would vote on a presidential nominee to the Court, addressed his fellow lawmakers from across the aisle.

"It appears that some of my Republican colleagues in the Senate have a very interesting view of the Constitution of the United States," he said. "Apparently they believe that the Constitution does not allow a Democratic president to bring forth a nominee to replace Justice Scalia."

"I strongly disagree with that," he said.

The dinner came just hours after Scalia's death was announced. Those hours were full of eulogies for Scalia's remarkable career and impact on the American judiciary, as well as a near-instantaneous politicization.

In clipped statements released by their campaigns shortly after Scalia's death was announced, both Sanders and Clinton expressed their condolences and praised the conservative icon.

“While I differed with Justice Scalia’s views and jurisprudence, he was a brilliant, colorful and outspoken member of the Supreme Court," Sanders said in a statement. "My thoughts and prayers are with his family and his colleagues on the court who mourn his passing.”

Clinton previewed the political fight to come in her statement

"My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Justice Scalia as they mourn his sudden passing. I did not hold Justice Scalia’s views, but he was a dedicated public servant who brought energy and passion to the bench," she said. "The Republicans in the Senate and on the campaign trail who are calling for Justice Scalia’s seat to remain vacant dishonor our Constitution. The Senate has a constitutional responsibility here that it cannot abdicate for partisan political reasons."

Well before either Clinton or Sanders spoke, Sen. Michael Bennet kicked the event off by leading the large crowd of Democrats in a moment of silence for Scalia's family.

Once that was done, he tore into the Republican field in a stemwinder of a speech that set the tone for the evening ahead.

Justice Antonin Scalia

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

WASHINGTON — The status of the Supreme Court and its role in American politics will rise to an unprecedented and historic level after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

And few people would have been more conflicted about that than Scalia himself.

“The Imperial Judiciary lives," Scalia once decried in one of his famed dissents, this one in opposition to the court’s 1992 decision to reaffirm a woman’s right to an abortion.

Twenty years later he was still making the same point. This idea of the imperial judiciary — that the Supreme Court had become too strong, too central, too powerful — animated much of Scalia’s justice philosophy and writing.

“This case is about power in several respects,” he wrote of the decision that struck down the federal ban on recognizing same-sex couples’ marriages in the Defense of Marriage Act. “It is about the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s opinion aggrandizes the latter, with the predictable consequence of diminishing the former.”

The court’s decision to hear the case and then to strike down DOMA “spr[u]ng forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

But on the day of his death, the Supreme Court and its role could not be more exalted.

A U.S. flag flies at half-staff in front of the Supreme Court on Saturday, Feb 13, 2016, after it was announced that Justice Antonin Scalia, 79, had died.

J. David Ake / AP

The flags were lowered. The Republicans held a moment of silence for him before their debate in South Carolina. And President Obama, presidential candidates from both parties, and high-ranking senators have already drawn the battle lines on an intense, protracted political fight over Scalia’s replacement.

The path forward: Obama will offer up a nominee; the Republicans in the Senate will refuse to move the nomination forward; and the politics of the Supreme Court could take center stage in a way no one alive today has ever seen, in the midst of an already unconventional presidential primary, at a time when social media rapidly changes the way people, interest groups, and grassroots movements interact with politics.

In death, Scalia has created an unprecedented situation in American politics.

Despite his misgivings about the role the Supreme Court has ascended to in America’s constitutional democracy, however, it's not entirely clear that Scalia would object: A national debate over the role of the Supreme Court playing prominently in White House, Senate, and presidential campaign politics in the coming months might be the sort of thing that would bring a grin to his face.

It was Scalia, after all, who — more than any other modern justice — made himself into a public, political figure. He spoke out forcefully, not just in his opinions but also in books and in public speeches, about his views of the law, as well as politics, and the way they affect Americans' daily lives.

Scalia enjoyed — even thrived on — vigorous debate, with elbows thrown, over these issues. He had no problem, moreover, with opponents coming at him with just as vigorous of disagreements. (In fact, his close friendship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be seen as one of the reasons why she, in more recent years, has positioned herself in a way as his liberal counterpart: becoming just as public and political of a figure — not shying away from throwing elbows herself.)

Now, however, the legal debate in this country will proceed without Scalia. There won’t be any speeches or interviews from him, no footnotes in dissents that serve a double purpose as commentary, for the first time in more than three decades.

Overnight, Justice Antonin Scalia's now empty seat on the Supreme Court has become the symbol of the power that the justices hold over Americans' lives.

John Bazemore / AP

Saturday night's Republican debate, the most contentious GOP debate of the year so far, got even more heated when Marco Rubio accused Ted Cruz of not speaking Spanish, with Cruz taking to Español to settle it.

Cruz had attacked Rubio for saying different things to Univision than he does in English-language news on immigration.

Rubio fired back. "I don't know how he knows what I said on Univision because he doesn't speak Spanish," he said to his fellow Cuban-American opponent.

Cruz wasn't having that.

vine.co

"Marco, if you want, say it right now, say it now, in Spanish," Cruz stammered in Spanish.

Cruz was arguing that Rubio goes on Spanish-language television and says different things on the issue of immigration, where past support for the 2013 bipartisan Senate bill has haunted him in the Republican primary.

"Marco went on Univision, in Spanish, and said he would not rescind President Obama's illegal executive amnesty on his first day in office," Cruz said.

However, Rubio has actually been rather consistent on the issue of Obama's executive actions, known as DACA. Around the time he announced his bid for president he told Jorge Ramos, Univision's influential anchor, that DACA "can’t be cancelled from one moment to the next because there already people benefitting.” But Rubio also said, "Yes it needs to end, it can’t be the permanent policy of the United States.”

Asked about it again in November, this time in English, Rubio said, "It will have to end at some point," and later, "DACA is going to end.”

Back at the debate, with no one having understood Cruz anyway, Rubio drove home the second portion of his attack.

"This is a disturbing pattern now," Rubio said. "For a number of weeks Ted Cruz has just been telling lies. He lied about Ben Carson in Iowa, he lies about Planned Parenthood, he lies about marriage, he's lying about all sorts of things."

The two senators have engaged in similar versions of immigration exchanges in a few debates. Cruz always frames it as a battlefield over amnesty, with Rubio, Chuck Schumer, and Obama on one side, and Cruz, Jeff Sessions and Steve King on the other, along with the American people, of course.

Rubio usually reminds viewers that Cruz wanted to expand H1-B visas 500% and said in an exchange immortalized on video that he didn't want immigration reform to fail.

Trump’s campaign manager tries to explain why Jeb Bush was able to get under the billionaire’s skin Saturday night.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

GREENVILLE, S.C. — A few minutes after the Republican presidential debate concluded Saturday night, a gaggle of perplexed reporters surrounded Donald Trump's campaign manager in the spin room and took turns asking essentially the same question:

What just happened to your candidate?

For two hours, the billionaire frontrunner had let the beta male of the 2016 field, Jeb Bush, needle and bait him into a series of flustered outbursts.

It began when Bush called Trump's plan to combat ISIS "ludicrous," and the billionaire's response was interrupted by loud boos from the audience in the debate hall. Trump tried dismissing the hecklers as "lobbyists" and "Jeb's special interest," but the jeers didn't let up, and as the the debate wore on, the hostile crowd reaction seemed to take a toll on the longtime showman.

Trump, his face reddening, erupted at even the faintest prompt or mildest pushback. When a moderator pressed him on a question about Social Security, he grew increasingly defensive and disproportionately upset and by the end of the exchange he was shouting his answer.

When Ted Cruz went after him for his past positions on social issues, Trump repeatedly demanded of his opponent, "Why do you lie? Why do you lie?" until finally Cruz deadpanned, "Donald, adults learn not to interrupt people."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Trump responded with bitter sarcasm, "you're an adult."

But it was Bush who seemed to most consistently get to Trump, and the dynamic between the two ultimately produced the only exchange of the night that might actually move votes.

When Trump was asked about comments he made years ago suggesting George W. Bush should be impeached over the Iraq War, it set off a sharp back-and-forth between him and Jeb. Amid boos from the blatantly pro-Bush audience, Trump briefly slid into a rant that made him sound like a left-wing anti-war protester circa 2004.

"You do whatever you want," Trump barked at the crowd as they booed. "You call it whatever you want. I will tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction."

In the post-debate spin room, reporters pressed Trump's campaign manager Corey Lewandowski for an explanation.

Why did he let Bush get under his skin?

"We got $19 trillion in debt and the politicians don't fix it, then they put up these ads that are disingenuous, and I think it bothers Mr. Trump," Lewandowski said, not bothering to dispute the premise. "[Bush] has a super PAC that's raised over $100 million that's attacking Mr. Trump all the time, and then Jeb goes out and tries to be the happy warrior when he's got this super PAC doing all this dirty work for him."

But Bush is doing so poorly in the polls, why not go after—

"Of course he is!" Lewandowski interrupted. "You know why he's doing so poorly? Because his message is terrible. People don't want another Bush in this country.

Why does Trump dislike Bush so much?

"I don't know if it's a personal dislike..." Lewandowski started, but when the assembled reporters erupted in incredulous laughter, he recalibrated.

"Look, look, Jeb has spent $100 million in this race attacking Mr. Trump ... and I think he takes that personally."

But Bush's super PAC attacks other candidates too — why does Trump take it so personally?

"He doesn't take it personally," Lewandowski said.

And then, "No — he takes it personally because it distorts his record."

If, by some electoral miracle, South Carolina ends up being the place where Jeb turns his campaign around and ultimately overtakes The Donald, much-derided Right to Rise PAC supporting Bush will no doubt take its share of credit. After a months-long assault on Marco Rubio, the well-funded PAC has recently begun mixing in some anti-Trump material — and according to the billionaire's campaign manager, the ads are getting in his head.

Still, as Lewandowski pointed out Saturday night, the reporters peppering him with questions about Trump's unimpressive performance have been wrong before.

"The pundit class has said that every time that Trump has said something that it's going to be the end of his campaign," he said. "We've seen it I don't know 10 or 12 times. You guys have all said that. .. Then the race is over and we go up in the polls."

Justice Antonin Scalia in 2011.

Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP

WASHINGTON — Forty years and one day passed between Antonin Scalia’s first arguments at the Supreme Court and his last.

The conservative justice died this weekend at 79 years old.

This short audio clip includes the opening words from a 39-year-old Scalia during his Jan. 19, 1976 appearance before the court as a U.S. assistant attorney general and the closing exchange in his final sitting on Jan. 20, 2016.

w.soundcloud.com

Scalia's first appearance before the Supreme Court was in the case of Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Cuba. Scalia argued on behalf of the federal government, which had filed a brief explaining the Ford administration's interests in the case about Cuban cigars. The argument and transcript are available via Oyez.

It was the only time Scalia would appear before the court to argue a case. (The side Scalia had argued in the case, Dunhill's side, was successful at the court.)

Scalia's first appearance before the Supreme Court:

Oyez / Via oyez.org

LINK: More on the case from the Blog of Legal Times: "When Scalia Argued Before - Not With - the Supreme Court"

A decade after his first appearance before the court, and only four years after his nomination and confirmation to the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. Circuit in 1982, President Reagan nominated Scalia to be a justice of the Supreme Court in the summer of 1986.

The new Chief Justice of the United States, William Rehnquist, right, shakes hands with the newest Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, outside the Supreme Court building on Sept. 26, 1986.

Barry Thumma / ASSOCIATED PRESS

After receiving Senate approval in mid-September. Scalia was on the bench on Oct. 6, 1986, to ask questions in the first case of the term, Hodel v. Irving, available via Oyez. (Scalia asked his first question about 15 minutes into the arguments.)

Nearly 30 years — or more than 2,000 arguments — later, the final day Scalia sat on the bench as an associate justice was Jan. 20, 2016.

The second and final argument that morning was in Sturgeon v. Frost, a little-noted case about the authority of the National Park Service in Alaska. The argument and transcript are available via the Supreme Court.

Scalia's final arguments at the Supreme Court:

LINK: More on the case from SCOTUSblog: "Argument analysis: Are rivers an important part of the national parks?"

Alex Wong / Getty Images

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Justice Antonin Scalia's sudden death Saturday will intensify an already contentious presidential election, in which candidates have spent months campaigning on promises to remake the Supreme Court in their respective ideological images, reshape American jurisprudence for a generation — and, consequently, tip the scales in some of the defining national debates of our time.

While the immediate political debate surrounding Scalia's death has focused on the question of who should get to appoint the conservative judicial icon's replacement — President Obama, or his Oval Office successor — the fate of the Supreme Court has been a major theme in the messages of 2016 contenders from Ted Cruz to Hillary Clinton.

Clinton regularly warns voters that the next president could appoint as many as three justices to the bench, meaning the ideological makeup of the court — and high-stakes issues like voting rights and abortion — hang in the balance. To make those appointments, she said last week, she will use "a bunch of litmus tests."

"I'm looking for people who understand the way the real world works,” Clinton said said at a forum in New Hampshire. “Who don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to support business, to support the idea that you know, money is speech, that gutted the Voting Rights Act. ... We have to preserve marriage equality. We have to go further to end discrimination against the LGBT community, we’ve got to make sure to preserve Roe v. Wade, not let it be nibbled away or repealed.”

"It's one of the many reasons why we can't turn the White House over to Republicans," she added.

Cruz, a former federal litigator and Constitutional lawyer, has made influencing the future of the Supreme Court a central selling point for his candidacy, promising voters he will "spend whatever political capital is necessary" to ensure the bench is packed with conservatives.

In recent speeches and interviews, Cruz has painted a dystopian picture of the country's fate if a Democratic president gets to stack the Supreme Court: Crosses and Stars of David will be chiseled off the tombstones of fallen soldiers. Ten Commandments monuments will be carted out of government buildings. "On-demand" abortion will be universally available to teenagers without parental consent.

"We are one liberal justice away from a five-justice liberal majority, the likes of which this country has never seen," Cruz said Friday in a talk radio interview. The same day, he warned evangelicals at Bob Jones University, "We get this election wrong, and our constitutional rights will be lost for a generation."

With Scalia's seat now vacant, the prospect of a transformed Supreme Court is much less abstract. Unless the seat is filled with another dynamic conservative and champion of originalism, the result will be a meaningful, long-term ideological shift in the court — and which direction it shifts may well depend on who is elected in November.

Those stakes will undoubtedly shape the debate currently consuming both parties' presidential primaries over which trait is most important in a candidate: "electability" or ideological purity.

One candidate likely to come under increased fire over both questions is Donald Trump. Last August, shortly after he announced his candidacy, Trump said his sister — a liberal, pro-choice appellate judge — "would be phenomenal" in the Supreme Court, a comment that riled many social conservatives. Trump's rhetoric has moved closer to the Republican mainstream recently, though he still doesn't speak with much command on the issue. In an interview with Boston Public Radio the day before the New Hampshire primary, he described his criteria for judicial appointments.

“I’m pro-life, and I would put in pro-life,” he said. “We want many different qualifications, we want a high degree of intelligence, that’s a very important qualification. You look at some of these decisions that are coming down now from some of these people, and it’s terrible what’s going on.”

In the Democratic race, questions about the ability of ascendant socialist Bernie Sanders to win in a general election will become more consequential.

While Sanders has long delighted supporters with his talk of using the Supreme Court to take power away from plutocrats and revolutionize the American political system — a central theme of his campaign — his rhetoric has also raised eyebrows among some progressives, who worry about his apparent unfamiliarity with the mechanics of the judicial system.

In January, Sanders tweeted, "Billionaires already own much of our economy. That, apparently, is not enough. Now, they want to own the United States government as well. Any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of their first decisions."

As several observers noted, Supreme Court justices, unlike legislators, don't get to decide which issues they will tackle first — they must wait for relevant cases to wind their way through the courts. A spokesperson for the candidate chalked up the error to the Tweet being "worded oddly." But it led some to question Sanders's understanding — and commitment — to the Supreme Court.

"The fact that no one in his campaign caught a fairly rudimentary error in his Citizens United tweet ... does suggest that he is currently not making the judiciary a high priority," wrote Ian Millhiser at the liberal site ThinkProgress. "It also suggests that his priorities may not align with the actual leverage points that will be available to him if he becomes president."